Dust and Cigarettes
by Epitome of Randomness
Summary: Ten drabbles. Ten things that helped push Sam Tyler over the edge. Sam/Annie, slight Sam/Gene if you squint.


**Hi, my name is Nicola and this is my first Life On Mars fic, but hopefully not my last. It's also my first time writing for a TV show.**

**Each one of these is one hundred words exactly, which is why some of the wording seems a little clunky. I wanted to see what else pushed Sam over the edge (literally) and made him go back to 1973. **

_**Disclaimer**_**: I do not own Life On Mars, Ashes to Ashes or any of **

**their associated characters and properties.**

**Dust and Cigarettes**

His fingers peck at the keyboard, lightly as rain on the earth. The glare from the screen – unfamiliar for its absence, gives him a headache. Why are all lights here white? The fluorescents buzz on the ceiling, the sun seems filtered. The hum of his computer is the most annoying of all. He's been slotted back in at his sleek black desk, a place that is familiar yet alien. He misses the heavy wooden desk he supposedly never had. It had weight, authority. Does one imagine the weight of objects? The pain from stubbing his toe on it was real.

*

A crime is committed, investigated. Warrant needed. More investigation. Warrant needed. Bring in the suspect. Warrant needed for that. Tape recorder on, date and time. The tape recorder, ridiculed in 1973, is now the most important thing in the room. He can't touch the villain. He can barely lean over the table. Filtered light comes through the windows. Overhead, the fluorescents buzz. The villain walks. He punches a hole in the wall on the way out, plaster dust billowing through the air like smoke.

He can't believe that he misses the dust and shadows of the lost and found room.

**

There is no dust here. The office air is so dry when piped through the air-conditioning that it gives him headaches. When it's put with the glare of his sleek PC, the hum of the lights, he gets migraines. People offer him Tylenol and when he doesn't accept, concerned glances. No dust here, no grime. Somehow he misses the cigarette smoke that permanently hung throughout the office in a lazy, curling haze. He's heard of passive smoking causing addictions, but didn't think it possible. He buys a packet of Gene's favourite brand. He's only going to have a couple, anyway.

*

When he got home, to his apartment, he opened his closet. A row of navy suits stare at him. A row of glossy black shoes sits on the floor. Crisp white shirts or blue shirts. Black ties. The only interesting piece of clothing is a faded Manchester scarf, crumpled at the back of a drawer. He sits on his wrinkled blue bedspread, stares at the walls. The white light, the filtered light makes them seem spotless. He goes into his white-and-silver spaceship kitchen. Once, a body lay by his silver oven. Every morning he walks in and sees the bloodstains.

**

They treat him like glass. He's the man who's survived a car accident, torture and a fight with Gene Hunt. They're the ones who are made of glass. Still. After he punches the wall and leaves a hole through to the other side, he's given the rookies task of filling in and filing away the paperwork. He gets six papercuts and doesn't notice until the blood has smeared on a murder inquiry. He smokes another cigarette, and it burns his lungs. Maya sees him, tuts, tells him no one likes kissing an ashtray. Who would want to kiss him anyway?

*

'Mum, do you remember when Dad disappeared? Late 1973? Was there a detective around that time? Detective Bolan, or Tyler? Did he look like me?'

He practises the speech in the mirror, under harsh fluorescents at work and the flickering, yellow bathroom light at home. He never tells her. She thinks he's getting better. He visits her every weekend, smiles, tells her that physical therapy is going great. Lies. It hurts to climb the stairs, his hands shake when he's tired.

He cuts himself shaving. Red blood mixes with white shaving cream, turning it rose pink. He doesn't even notice.

**

He dreams about them, tossing and turning in his cold, lonely bed. It isn't always the train. They're in the estate with Leonard, and the cavalry don't charge in. The hostage taker loses it, and Gene hasn't got his flasks. But still. The train is the worst. What if he'd just turned around? What if he'd just said no to Morgan in the first place? He now knows that he helped start the bureaucracy that policing is today.

'I don't want to be a policeman any more!'

He stares at the perpetual orangey twilight of Manchester and has a cigarette.

*

Fill and file, fill and file. He sits at his computer, fingers tapping at the keys. He slides the papers into smooth tan folders, the same colour they used. Or didn't. He gathers them together and takes the echoing, empty stairs down to the file room. He starts to loiter in the basement rooms during his breaks, feeling like a schoolboy hiding from the bullies. He walks along the aisles, hands along the files, feeling the hundreds of hours of work in each one. He never looks inside, knowing that there are some that could drive him over the edge.

**

He receives a warning when during an arrest, when he forgets himself and sinks his knee into a villains stomach. People begin to avoid him, even more than usual. He feels like the local basket case. Lunch by himself in the file room isn't that bad, though. The light down there is yellow and warm, and feels almost friendly. He isn't meant to smoke down there because of the paper. You would have to be an idiot to set the paper alight, though. It's all regulations, stifling regulations. He can't imagine any of the old team surviving in this environment.

*

He stands on the roof and watches the people below go about their lives. They stare at their feet as they walk, look past each other. The phones pressed to their ears seem to distance them from each other, rather than bring them closer as once thought. His own phone buzzes. He switches it off and tosses it to one side. He can't believe he missed them. A thought strikes him and he glances at his watch. He's late for yet another meeting.

He lights up a cigarette and stares at the drop from the railing to the ground.

_End_.


End file.
